Riddle Me This
by CeeSixAychTwelveOhSix
Summary: What if someone had gotten ahold of Tom Riddle's diary before Lucius dumped it on Ginny? What if that someone had the power to change Tom? No one is completely evil... right?


A/N: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters, settings, etc. I do own the books. I've read them all multiple times. And now I write fanfiction. Which is why you're reading this. Hey! It's amazing how these things work out!

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Mary Callahan didn't know what exactly she was doing in Knockturn Alley; she'd been told multiple times by her mother that only evil wizards went down that way. Witches and wizards with death wishes. She also didn't know why she wasn't afraid. She knew she stuck out like a sore thumb. She knew that she would have no way of protecting herself should anyone decide to mug her; she couldn't practice magic outside of school yet, being only sixteen.

On top of it all, Mary knew that she didn't care.

Peering into the shop window, Mary studied the contents of the store. Books. Very old books, most of them probably dealing indirectly with dark magic. Her eyes lingered on a large tome, the title in an old, probably dead language. _What I wouldn't give for three more galleons,_ she thought wistfully before beginning to walk again. Her family wasn't very well off; her entire life savings was little more than a week's salary of a minimum-wage employee. Her father had died when she was little more than two years old, leaving her and her mother to fend for themselves. Her mother said that he had been unwise in spending their money, and as a result he had nothing to leave his wife and daughter when he died. Mary's mother worked as a waitress in the leaky cauldron. The pay wasn't very good, but the owner had a soft spot for the two girls and made sure they never went hungry.

Mary herself worked as a maid for a rich pureblood family. Unfortunately for her, the family was incredibly stingy; if it didn't profit them in the long run, they didn't fork over. Mary wasn't sure what the going rate for maids was, but she was absolutely certain that it was more than five knuts a month. _Thank Merlin I don't have to support my mother. _

Her trek down the street was halted as she ran into a vertical surface. She guessed that it wasn't a wall, because she heard the unprepared "oof" of a person getting the wind knocked out of their lungs, and soon after she was unceremoniously shoved to the ground. "Out of my way, girl!" the person hissed.

Mary looked up and immediately flushed deeply, completely mortified. "Pardon me, Sir, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

The man looked down and recognized the girl as his employee. Brushing of the front of his robes distastefully, Lucius Malfoy sneered down at the girl. "Don't think that you can use this as an excuse to miss a day of work, Callahan. I expect you to show up early tomorrow morning. You've ruined my best robes, and I expect you to fix them." He stepped over the girl and continued on his way down the road.

Reaching out to grasp the window sill of the nearest store, Mary pulled herself up off the ground and sent a glare towards her boss. "Sure thing, _Master,_" she hissed under her breath. "Just give me time to finish licking your boots." She stood up straight and winced; there would be a nasty bruise on her back by the end of the day. Glancing down at her clothes, she sighed. "_His_ robes are ruined?" she muttered. "_My_ robes are beyond repair!" It was true; the one set of robes she had owned since her third year in school was already threadbare and patched. The fall had completely torn the back and the right sleeve, and she had no scraps of material large enough to patch it, nor did she have any thread left. So even if she _could_ afford the material, she couldn't fix it anyway.

Trying to forget her anger, Mary started to walk down the street again. She was so busy seething, she hardly noticed that she kicked something as she stepped. Glancing down, she noticed a dark leather-bound book without any lettering on the cover lying on the ground. She bent over and carefully picked it up, opening the cover and revealing a blank page. She frowned thoughtfully as she inspected the book. Its binding had been elegantly and painstakingly done; it was probably worth something. Mary spent a moment wondering whether she should sell or keep it when she realized that it probably belonged to Malfoy. She sighed, crestfallen. _Of course,_ she thought darkly. _Wealth is wasted on the wealthy. He probably doesn't even know what this is worth. And am I going to give it back to him?_ She paused, taking a moment to glance around her at the various stores and shifty-looking wizards and witches. She looked back down at the book in her hands and glared at it. "Yes," she muttered. "I am."

Mary drew the book into her chest and walked hurriedly back towards Diagon Alley, keeping her head down as she passed by shop keepers and customers alike. First thing tomorrow morning (after cleaning the master's robes of course), she would return the book to the Malfoy library.

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Closing the door to their tiny flat quietly, Mary shed her robes and hung it off the hook on the wall. "Mother," she called out quietly. "I'm back. Are you home?" She was greeted by silence and held her breath. Tip-toeing into the kitchen and seeing a scrap of paper resting on the counter, Mary sighed with relief. She crossed the room and read the paper, verifying that it was the same note she'd left for her mother that morning. _That means she hasn't read it,_ Mary concluded. _If she'd been home already, she'd be waiting for me and my ass would be grass._ She smiled ruefully at that thought. Her mother wouldn't approve of such language, but then again, her mother was guilty of using similar words on occasion.

Mary picked up the scrap of paper and wadded it into a ball. She tossed it into the waste basket and walked from the kitchen and into the bedroom she shared with her mother. She knelt down on her bed and set down the book that she was still carrying. She was anxious to see what was written in the pages. Even if she couldn't keep it, at least she could pretend she owned such a nice book for a while.

But as she flipped through the pages, Mary noticed that something was amiss. There were no words in the book. All of the pages were completely blank. Like... _Oh. No. This is too good. _She giggled slightly. Had Lucius Malfoy bought a _diary?_ She laughed out loud. "A diary!" she gasped. "Oh, that's rich!" Really, it was just too funny to imagine Lucius Malfoy, sitting in bed, bent over a diary, spilling out his guts to a blank page. _Dear diary, today I broke a nail and ruined my manicure! And then my gorgeous blonde hair got a twig caught on it. Narcissa laughed at me. I thought I was going to die!_ Mary fell over in peals of laughter, almost rolling off of her bed.

All too soon, her laughter faded away and Mary was left lying on her bed, staring at the blank book by her side. She sat up and sighed. The blank pages were so appealing. They practically screamed, _write in me!_ But Mary couldn't give in. "It's Mister Malfoy's book," she reminded herself aloud. "I have to give it back tomorrow. He'd notice if I wrote in it." She forced herself to look away, but found her eyes straying back to the book. "Although, if I only wrote in one corner of one page, just tiny, he wouldn't see it, right?" she asked herself. Hesitating for only a moment, Mary bent over the edge of her bed and snatched a quill and an inkwell out of her tattered school bag. She turned the pages of the book until she was just past the middle and dipped the quill in the ink. "Now, what shall I write?" she whispered. _Why not write your name?_ her mind suggested.

Mary set the quill down on the bottom edge of the right-hand page and scratched in her tidy scrawl, 'my name is mary callahan'. She didn't bother to use capitals, deciding the larger letters would be more noticeable.

And then the strangest thing happened. The ink on the page, not even having enough time to dry, began to fade. Mary blinked, not believing her eyes. It seemed as if the page was soaking up the ink like a sponge. She picked up her bottle of ink and inspected it, dipping a finger into the pigment. She brought it close to her eyes. It _seemed_ to be normal ink...

Mary glanced back down at the page and yelped, jumping off of the bed. And invisible hand seemed to be writing on the top of the page in an elegant, flowing script, '_Hello Mary. I am Tom Riddle._'

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A/N: So. This is going to be a multichapter story. I'm trying to make it conform to cannon, but the idea itself is obviously a bit AU. Please bear with me. Reviews are much appreciated!


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